Kindred in Death by J. D. Robb

drive.”
    He waited until they were in the vehicle before he answered the question. “Yes, now and then, tailoring such to suit the mark. But more often the Irish suited well enough. I might layer it on—switching to a thicker West County brogue, or posh it up with public school tones.”
    “But, especially if it was a long con, or some job that would take several weeks and a lot of communication with the mark, it would be easier and safer to stick close to natural. Posh it up or thicken it up, but stay with the basics.”
    “That’s true enough,” he agreed as he headed uptown. “One slip and the whole thing can fall apart.”
    “Guy tells her he’s from Georgia. She likes the accent, tells her friend that part. He’s smart, so the smart thing is to use what you have, what you’re comfortable with. Maybe he lived in the south, at least for a while. He tells her he goes to Columbia, so maybe he did, or he knows enough about it to be able to speak intelligently when she says, hey, I have a friend who goes there. No point in getting tripped up on those kinds of details. It’s hard to believe he’s nineteen, and has this kind of patience and control, this kind of focus.”
    She glanced at Roarke. “Though some do.”
    He switched lanes to slide into a narrow gap in traffic. “At nineteen I had a lifetime behind me, of being a street rat, of running games, thieving, and aiming toward getting the fuck out. So by then I’d honed some skills, and learned the need for that patience and control.”
    “Murder’s different from thievery.”
    “It is indeed entirely different. And more yet when it’s the deliberate murder of an innocent girl. It would be all in the motivation, wouldn’t it? To plan it, run it, execute it this way would take a strong motive. But for some, the motive’s all in the thrill, isn’t it?”
    “It doesn’t feel like a thrill killing. It’s too exacting for that. And too cold.”
    He said nothing for a few moments as he nipped around a Rapid Cab and through a light seconds before it flashed red. “When I went for the men who’d tortured and killed Marlena, it was cold. Cold-blooded, cold-minded. Some might have looked at the results and thought otherwise, but there was no thrill involved in it. None of it.”
    Eve thought of Summerset’s young daughter—a girl Roarke had thought of as a sister, and who’d been used and murdered as a warning to him. “Deena wasn’t executed. If there’s a similarity it’s between her and Marlena. The payback. It keeps ringing for me. On the other hand, he could have taken her out other ways, at other times. Abducted her, put MacMasters through that agony before killing her.”
    “He liked playing the boyfriend, you’re thinking. Stringing it out, making her care. He likes the game maybe. If there was a thrill, it would’ve been in that stage of it. Cold blood and a cold mind. You’d need both to be able to romance a girl, to use that for the express purpose of taking her life.”
    When he pulled up in front of the MacMasters home, Eve got out to stand on the sidewalk.
    “It’s later than it would’ve been when he walked here. He had to walk, nothing else makes sense. He could’ve come from either direction, even through the park. Until we find somebody who saw him that night, we can’t know. He had the cuffs, he had the drug. Warm night, but he could’ve been wearing a jacket. A lot of kids wear them more for style than need. Restraints in a pocket, maybe, same with the drug. But he’d need tools, wouldn’t he, for the security. Maybe he had a satchel, a bag, a backpack. Or he’s just got the tools in another pocket. McNab wears pants that have a million of them.”
    “With a jacket you could hook the cuffs in the back, cover them, as cops often do.”
    “I think he strode along, a young guy with somewhere to go. Just another teenager or college type, good-looking, clean, upscale clothes. Nobody pays attention. I think he tagged